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“Names.” Rook’s voice dropped into something inhuman.
“Rook.” Cillian’s warning was gentle, but the implication was clear. No more smashing tables.
Ethan listed them anyway. “Ryan Matthews, evening manager. Tricia Cole, facilities director. Grant Voss, board associate. Richard Ashford, board member. Three maintenance workers on rotation - Jamie Sanderson, Jennifer Griffin, and David Olson. There are also two building supervisors…”
“Silas.” Thorn cut him off. “Find the security footage.”
Silas was already at his workstation, fingers and shadows flying across multiple keyboards. “I’m accessing the Garrison’s security network now. Their system is...embarrassingly simple.” His screens filled with camera feeds. “What’s your locker number?”
“Seventeen. Second from the right, bottom row.”
The footage fast-forwarded, the timestamp blurring. Staff members moved in accelerated motion, opening lockers, changing clothes, and retrieving belongings. Silas slowed the playback. “There. Four hours before you were due to go on shift tonight.”
Grant Voss appeared on screen, moving purposefully down the hallway. He glanced around - checking for witnesses - then knelt in front of locker seventeen. His hands moved quickly, something small and silver glinting in his palm before he tucked it inside and closed the door.
“That was quick enough to not arouse suspicion if someone walked in on him,” Julian observed. “He’s done this before.”
Ethan’s stomach twisted. “Are you able to check other lockers at other times? Fiona’s, for example?”
Silas rewound the footage, expanding the timeline. Grant appeared again. And again. Over the previous six weeks, he’d accessed eleven different staff lockers, always during quiet periods, and always with that same furtive check for observers.
“Eleven tracking sigils.” Ethan’s voice sounded distant to his own ears. “Eleven potential victims he was monitoring simultaneously.”
“Fiona’s locker?” Rook asked.
Silas fast-forwarded. “Yes. Ten days ago.”
The screen showed Grant placing something identical in Fiona’s locker - another silver pendant with a bloodred stone.
“He was tracking her movements before he made contact.” Ethan forced himself to think through the implications. “He knew her schedule, her route home, and when she’d be vulnerable. The date was just a cover-up. He already knew exactly when and where to take her. I should’ve asked her, but it’s almost certain she didn’t send me the text from the restaurant the Wednesday night she was taken. I’m guessing that was someone else using her phone.”
“And he knew the same information about you.” Julian’s blunt tone didn’t soften the horror. “The only difference is you declined his offers, which complicated his approach.”
Ethan nodded slowly. “He couldn’t isolate me if I wouldn’t meet him privately. So I’m guessing the necklace is his form of marking me while he waited for another opportunity.”
“Or,” Thorn said quietly, “he sold the information to someone else.”
The words hung in the air.
“You’re thinking Voss didn’t just disappear.” Julian’s eyes were bright with the same terrible clarity Ethan felt clicking into place. “You think someone took him.”
“I’m thinking it could be the occultist, especially after seeing that necklace left for Ethan.” Silas pulled up a new screen, sigil patterns rotating in three-dimensional space. “These wards didn’t just appear. Someone with extensive knowledge of guardian physiology designed, tested, and refined them. That requires resources, time, and access to extremely restricted research.”
“You said you had two possibilities in Madison.” Ethan moved to stand beside Silas’s workstation. “Who?”
Silas hesitated.
“Tell him.” Rook’s shadows coiled tighter. “If he’s a target, he needs to know who he’s dealing with.”
“The obvious person would be a man known as Sebastian Pope.” Silas typed the name, and a photograph appeared. The man on the screen looked to be in his fifties, with black and silver hair, an expensive suit, and hard eyes that seemed to glare at the camera. “He’s a high-end antiquities dealer, but he specializes in occult texts, blood magic artifacts, and objects most collectors wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.”
“So he’s rich?” Ethan asked.
“Extremely. He comes from old money - the kind that buys silence and political access.” Silas pulled up property records and financial statements showing various transactions. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him, especially after the Vane incident, and from what I can tell, he’s been supplying wards and suppression technology to criminals for decades. He has a very selective clientele, and his services are extremely expensive.”
“Vane had his work?” Cillian leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
“The suppression cage was definitely his design. I’d stake my reputation on it.” Silas highlighted sections of the sigil patterns. “These flourishes and this particular binding geometry form a signature style. Pope isn’t an easy man to track down, but from what I did find, he’s studied under practitioners in Eastern Europe in the seventies, and shows an interest in blood magic traditions from three different disciplines.”
